Baseball Glove Patent Wars

[mikesglove]

A ruling in 1956 from the U.S. Court of Appeals settled a lawsuit between Archibald Turner, inventor for Wilson Sporting Goods, and the inventor H.J. O'hara. At issue was the patent for the design and construction of a natural curve back on a baseball glove. O'hara's patent of 1938 is shown below. The curve of the fingers was created by transverse seams of the finger stalls.

The following picture depicts the invention.

The model was from a 1941 Spalding catalog. The transverse seam was made up of 2 convex edges sewn together. The effect of this would be to curve the fingers toward the pocket. There were many variations of this patent by O'hara as shown below

J.C. Higgins model

Trojan model

OK Double Button Y Strap

The OK model was mentioned in the lawsuit directly as a reference to the O'hara patent. This model is from the 1939 OK catalog below and is one of the most unique gloves I have seen.

[mikesglove]

Archibald Turner's patent of 1941 is shown below. The curve of the fingers is formed by the longitudinal seams of the finger stalls

the following picture depicts this invention

The curve was created by joining 2 convex edges along the length of the finger stall to curve it inward toward the pocket The invention was called the Wilson "Streamline Kurv-Form". O'hara sued claiming Wilson's design not patentable. O'hara claimed the medial and longitudinal seam of the Wilson glove was commonplace practice among glovemakers. O'hara produced as evidence an old battered Ken-Wel "Dazzy Vance" model glove, showing the natural curve of the fingers to the judges and the Bert Kennedy patent of 1922 of centered finger seams.

Dazzy Vance model

1922 Ken-Wel patent

Ohara won his suit against Wilson and Wilson appealed the ruling. The judges ruled the Wilson design an improvement but because of historical precedent it was declared not a patentable invention. The other glove manufactures were free to continue their own version of the curved finger glove despite Wilson's attempt to monopolize the design. A curved back glove is shown below in this 1939 OK catalog

Ok model 740 circa 1940

This OK Mfg. glove featured the "Multiple Seamed Natural Curved Back".
thanks to JD and Rob for the help

[stockbuddy]

Hi Mike,

Great job on the glove patents. Loved it. Nice digging for the info and cool gloves. Some look very familiar.

Dave

[softball66]

Got any idea who H. J. O'hara worked for? Glove company? Independent designer?

[okdoak]

Great information, Mike! I have a Canadian Spalding of that design. Very cool to see the patent and read about the resulting lawsuit. I'm guessing that they didn't sell a lot of them, though.

[mikesglove]

Thanks for the comments! Joe to answer your question, It is unclear if H.J. O'hara worked for Lawrence Kennedy of Kennedy Sporting Goods or was an independent contractor who supplied a glove design to Kennedy at the time of the lawsuit. My feeling is that O'hara was independent because so many other brands carry his patent design. Standard Sports Mfg. of Illinois was also mentioned in the lawsuit but I couldn't find any info about them or their association with Kennedy or O'hara.

[vintagebrett]

Some of the OK gloves have stampings on the side indicating the curved finger model. I'll snap some pictures tomorrow and add them to this thread.

[softball66]

Be nice if we could develop a list of glove designers Mike. We know who the Rawlings guys are. Hartman, Tomkins, Rawlings at Nocona. Turner and Javor at Wilson. Seems like Rainey was at Spalding (Rainey Trap), and memory fails on others etc. These people are relatively obscure compared to the Lattinas.

[vintagebrett]

Ben Stobbe was the glove designer for OK from the start in 1938 and worked until the mid 1950's.

[vintagebrett]

Here are some more OK stuff pertaining to the curved fingers.

[mikesglove]

It would not be hard to develop a list. I have run across a lot of repeat names and "in house" inventors in addition to the ones you mention and of course there are a lot of obscure designers. I am working up a story of a particular early and obscure glove designer right now that I think you will find interesting.

[mikesglove]

Interesting photo Brett posted of the OK curved finger stamping on the side of the glove. The 1939 OK catalog states "These features can be had only in OK gloves" The OK design predates the Wilson patent by a few years. It is no wonder the Wilson patent of 1941 was ultimately gutted in court of certain provisions

[vintagebrett]

That's interesting about the court case. Funny thing, OK only issued the double button X strap for a year or two. If you look in the 1940 catalog, it is no longer there (and they started making gloves in 1938 so it's a small window). Another interesting design is also in that ad you posted - I've attached a better scan from the catalog of the laced back model. This is numero uno on my most wanted list at this time. Since we are talking about these early OK gloves, any readers out there that have interest should download the 1940 catalog from JD's site. The amount of detail and description about the gloves (in chart form) is top notch and very interesting.

[mikesglove]

here is a great ad from okdoak for the "Flexform" glove from a 1936 Great Western catalog. It illustrates the 1938 O'Hara patent. At this point the glove was stamped as "Pat. Pend."

[okdoak]

I pulled this out of the ebay bargain bin recently. It's a Higgins with a Don Gutteridge endorsement. The H J O'Hara patent number is stamped on the thumb.